The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“Move!” she yelled, and unleashed an extended barrage of suppressing fire.

MacD and Eric shot as they retreated in cover formation while Juan ran down the hall to clear their path. By now, he could see that the Achilles was beginning to pull away from the Oregon. They didn’t have much time before she would be free to maneuver into a firing position on the transformer station.

Juan was met by three men attempting to flank them by coming down from the deck above. Juan got the first one in the chest as he was coming down the stairs, but the other two retreated upstairs, sporadically firing to cut off escape in that direction.

Juan led MacD, Eric, and Gretchen down the stairs. Their destination was the railgun’s main power supply.

“These guys don’t seem as well trained as the other mercs we’ve run into,” MacD said, barely breaking a sweat as they ran down the stairs.

“Golov probably sent his best people on the raid in the Netherlands,” Gretchen said.

“They still have us outnumbered,” Juan reminded them. “It won’t take them long to figure out where we went.”

They sprinted through the corridor to the room housing the railgun power supply. Two men inside raised pistols as the team rushed in, but Juan put them down before they could fire.

The large room, filled with electrical panels, consoles, computer terminals, and wiring conduits, hummed from generators charging the massive capacitors. It had doors on either end, one toward the bow and the other toward the stern, making defense of the space particularly difficult.

“Gretchen, Eric, take the doors while MacD and I plant the explosives. MacD, set them for sixty seconds.”

Juan worked as quickly as he could to mash the C-4 against the control panel.

—

Max had the Oregon’s engines at full throttle, but they still couldn’t keep up with the Achilles’s fantastic speed. Despite Linda’s expert helm control, the yacht was pulling away.

Their hulls continued to grind together, but the armored plating of both ships withstood the enormous pressure. The Achilles’s stern was now almost even with the Oregon’s bow.

Max forced a last few drops of power from the magnetohydrodynamic engines and ordered, “Hard aport!”

Linda slewed the Oregon around and it mashed even harder against the Achilles’s stern in a shriek of metal.

But it was no use. The Achilles was free.

Max tried to open the panel to expose the 120mm cannon, but the impact had crushed the doors and jammed them shut. They were out of operational Exocet missiles, and the Oregon’s torpedoes were useless against the Achilles’s mini-torpedoes.

He brought the Gatling guns to bear on the yacht. The angry buzz-saw sound of the rotating six-barreled guns was accompanied by the chunks of the Achilles flying away as the tungsten rounds chewed into her stern, but they did nothing to slow her down. In seconds, she’d be in position to fire on the transformers.

Juan and his team were now the only ones who could take out the railgun.

SIXTY-FOUR

On the Achilles’s bridge, four of the monitors were showing live street webcam feeds from Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Brussels. When the screens went black, Golov would have confirmation that Europe’s power system had been fried.

It was a struggle to keep his mind off Ivana’s death, but he did his best by focusing on the havoc he was about to wreak, a bittersweet revenge for his devastating loss.

The Oregon was in pursuit but falling behind quickly. Her rotary cannons relentlessly hammered away at the Achilles.

“Bring us around, Mr. Kravchuk,” Golov said, standing defiantly in the middle of the bridge to show that he would not succumb to the worst that Cabrillo could dish out. “Take aim on the main transformer housing.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The Achilles swung around, continuing at flank speed. The railgun’s elevation lowered. The targeting reticle on the screen was coming into focus on the transformer station.

—

Juan was planting the last explosive charge in the railgun’s power supply room when he heard Max in his earpiece.

“Juan, you’re out of time. They’re lining up to fire.”